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It is hard to explain to someone who has never had an eating disorder the freedom it is to be out of one. Everyone in recovery will tell you that it's not necessarily all the behaviors that accompany the eating disorders but it is the obsessive, continual chatter that is in your head about food, weight, diet, and body image.

Although I myself have never given birth, as midwife to my dearest friend, I witnessed the experience first hand. Thus, I know it can hurt like hell, produce a goopy mess and in all likelihood, at least one person is going to be screaming. Hello, 2012. I am my own New Year’s baby!

Another Christmas, another church potluck and another potluck followed by another potluck. As the pastor’s son, I cannot refuse, I have to smile, say thank you and more often than not, eat whatever it is, like it or not, in front of the person that made it so that they will feel that they have blessed me and thus my father in some way. Christmas potlucks also mean that as a family, we visit people in their homes, which means I cannot just excuse myself to go eliminate. Whatever luck was originally in the pot has run out.

Aloha! Mom and I made it the islands. It has been an interesting trip so far. Not anything like I expected. I had painted all these pictures in my head as to what this trip would be or would not be. Thus far, the live version has been far different.

“You will have to celebrate the lights on your own dear, I’m going to Hawaii for Hanukkah,” my mother says to me. My mind explodes; Hawaii for Hanukkah? Ok, so it isn’t our most sacred holiday but Hawaii? What is she thinking? What is she running from? Can I go too? A plethora of thoughts... I like that last one; “Can I go too?” I exclaim!

I took eleven laxatives today. Yesterday I took ten. My intake has been increasing over the past year but it has doubled in the last week. It seems that I now have to take more to get the effect I used to get from a few. I think about trying to eat less so that there is less for the pills to eliminate but I find it hard to escape my love of food. I am consumed by the acceptance I feel when my mouth embraces a chocolate crisp. In that moment, everything is perfect. Then I think of my 28” waist and feel guilty, enormously guilty. I hate myself.

Weight problems and food addictions have become a national epidemic. At any given time, twenty five million Americans are seriously dieting. Only 1 out of every 200 dieters lose their weight and keep it off for a year or more. Although there are more diet programs and weight loss products than any other time in history, recent studies show that roughly sixty percent of adult Americans are overweight and one third are obese.

There was a long silence, some rustling, a cough then a man’s voice on the recorder; “Uh Jessie, this is Albert” – very long pause – “ ‘uh your dad. Uh’ I just uh’ wanted to see if you and your mom were all right. Uh’ I hope you got my card.” A click, he had hung up. Stunned, I welled up with tears; I was eight years old again. For so many years I craved to hear his voice, longed to remember his tone and there it was.

I can feel their eyes on me - watching, surveying and judging. My father is speaking but I cannot hear a word he is saying. I do my best to follow along in the scriptures but all I can hear is my dad’s voice telling me to “sit up straight” or “retie your tie”. My heat races as I sense people watching me, some just glance, other stare waiting for me to do or say something that will reflect directly on how they accept or reject my father’s sermon.

I have not seen my dad in twenty-three years. It feels strange to write that because when I think about my dad I instantly become a little girl and it is hard to comprehend that I am older than twenty-three, much less that long since I have seen the man who as a child was my god. A couple days ago, I got a card in the mail from him. It was a sympathy card to express condolences on the loss of my NaNa. He sent one for my mother as well.